Kongolo fire, 14 July 2023 Kongolo, Kabalo
The fire started on 14 July 2023 in Kongolo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,567 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 171th largest in Tanganyika since 2016 (of 232 with a page). Number 51 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2023, of 76.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 5,567ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 14 Jul 2023 – 22 Jul 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- territories
- Started on
- 14 Jul
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 175
- in a single hotspot: 47 MW
- Danger at start
- 42
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 180MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,427 ha in 2016, 958 ha in 2017, 3,978 ha in 2018, 666 ha in 2019, 2,381 ha in 2020, 1,380 ha in 2021, 2,698 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,227 ha that had burned before.
- 877 ha Kongolo fire, July 2020 5,502 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 626 ha Kabalo fire, July 2021 11,242 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 599 ha Kabalo fire, July 2016 6,793 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 312 ha Kabalo fire, July 2020 7,860 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 62 ha Kongolo fire, July 2018 19,676 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Kongolo where it started4,538 ha reached on 14 Jul0.4 %
-
1,068 ha reached on 17 Jul0.1 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
The weather day by day
ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Jul | 34.1 °C | 24 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 15 Jul | 34.6 °C | 25 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 16 Jul | 35.4 °C | 22 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 17 Jul | 34.9 °C | 22 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 18 Jul | 34.7 °C | 20 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 19 Jul | 35.1 °C | 20 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 20 Jul | 36.2 °C | 20 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 21 Jul | 34.9 °C | 21 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 22 Jul | 35.3 °C | 19 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 23 Jul after | 35.0 °C | 21 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 24 Jul after | 34.8 °C | 22 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 25 Jul after | 36.0 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 26 Jul after | 35.7 °C | 16 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 27 Jul after | 34.6 °C | 18 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 28 Jul after | 35.4 °C | 19 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 29 Jul after | 36.4 °C | 21 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 30 Jul after | 36.4 °C | 22 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 31 Jul after | 36.7 °C | 18 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 1 Aug after | 35.9 °C | 16 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
Detections table · 175Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kongolo fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 July 2023 and 22 July 2023: 9 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,567 hectares (55.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kongolo (4,538 ha, 0.4 %); Kabalo (1,068 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very high.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Democratic Republic of the Congo (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
Where to verify it
A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.
Satellite cross-check
Does something look wrong on this page?
This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 175 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
Where this data comes from
The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.